Reciprocate, Damn It
by Domicile
Summary: ... Sam’s right, I am a nub. Cam, Props if you get the title


My parents' divorce was finalized when I was eleven. It was one of the worst days of my life. I hated them for it. I hated that that they couldn't be bothered to try a little harder, if only for my sake. I hated that my father didn't fight for me. I hated that when I saw him post-divorce, he'd say 'hey, kid,' like I could be anybody else's and not his. Like I didn't have his wavy brown hair and eyes. Like I didn't act so much like him it scared my mother. He was locked up for armed robbery a few months after the divorce and I haven't seen or heard from him since. My mom and I stayed with my grandparents for a few months until we found an apartment at the end of August. Bushwell Plaza didn't look like anything special; it was just your typical high-rise apartment complex with a smooth, overly windowed exterior and a disgruntled doorman. I curled myself into the corner of the room between the window and my desk for most of the day while movers shifted in boxes and furniture. I felt so small and insignificant that day. We moved in two days before I started the sixth grade. The day that I fell in love.

Her name was Carly Shay. She had long, silky dark hair, big brown eyes, and I was lost to her from the moment I forgot how to say hello. Her and her brother, Spencer, an enigmatic artist, lived in the apartment across the hall. Instead of the moping I had planned on doing, I found myself dancing and singing around the new apartment certain that before long Carly Shay would be mine.

It wasn't long after I met Carly that I met the person that would forever own her heart, even though I didn't know it at the time. Sam. She was small, skinny, with long curly blonde hair and blue eyes that glared at me from the moment I found her lazing in the hall outside Carly's apartment. I'd greeted her uneasily. She punched me and called me a nerd. Life hasn't changed much. I should have known from that day, when Carly came home and linked her fingers with Sam's, slipping her a cookie for waiting outside the door instead of just breaking in, that I had no chance. We were eleven and I was too late.

I've never really understood their relationship. For starters, they are so opposite of each other personality wise, how are they even friends? What do they see in each other? What's there to like? I didn't know until much later on that friends aren't actually supposed to touch as much as they do. All the cuddling, hugging, holding hands, just unnecessary touching of any kind, they are almost always in some kind of physical contact with each other. I thought at first maybe it really was a need, like a clutch or a security blanket. It's not, though. They just want to. That should have been my first clue. But it wasn't. Because Sam's right, I am a nub. Or maybe I'm just a guy who is hopelessly in love with a girl who never really will be available.

I'm probably a little more involved in their relationship than is healthy. But when Sam knocks on my door and willingly enters my apartment to sit awkwardly on my couch, I can't stop everything from flooding back into my head.

"So, what's wrong?" She's changed a lot since we met. A little taller, a little curvier, but a ton nicer to me, all on Carly's command, I'm sure. When we were young, she always looked angry or scared when she wasn't looking at Carly. Somewhere along the way, she incorporated other emotions like sad, happy, numb, and semi-angry, not just explosively.

She looks up from the dark green smoothie my mother forced on her before returning to her yoga tape in the next room. Her eyes are bloodshot and darkly ringed. Her lips are red and chewed. "What makes you think there's something wrong, Fredward?" She says forcefully, setting her cup down on the coffee table. My mom's food is probably some of the only food she's ever rejected.

"So you just dropped by to hang out?" I smile, leaning back into my chair.

"Like I'd ever willingly hang out with you!" She scoffs, standing.

I stand with her. "Which brings me back to what's wrong?"

She opens her mouth to respond, but her phone goes off so she checks it instead. Her eyes narrow at whatever number is being displayed and she clicks the side and sits back down. "I can't believe I came to you. What the hell is wrong with me?" She mumbles and I'm not really sure if she is asking me or not.

"Did something happen with Carly?" I press, returning to my chair.

"Why? Did she tell you something happened?" Sam demands, glaring at me, a glare I've been on the receiving end of for six years.

I shake my head. "No, but why would you come to me if you could go to her?"

She bites her lip nodding. "Why would I come to you if I could go to _anyone_ else?" Again, I'm not really sure if her words are directed at me. Not that it matters. In truth, if she couldn't go to Carly or Spencer, I probably am third choice. Not to hang out with, I know, but most of her other "friends" aren't people she'll talk about anything beyond her favorite wrestler with.

"What happened?" I ask for what feels like the hundredth time.

Her eyes lift to mine and they just look sad and tired and I have a weird pull to hug her even though she'd probably break my arm for it. She's wearing board shorts and a Recycle t-shirt and she looks so small in them. She doesn't usually let me see this side of her, this side that boarders on, dare I say it, vulnerable. That's something she shows only to Carly. I'm not sure if I should feel sad or scared. Her phone buzzes once again. She barely looks at it before clicking the side and setting it back down.

"I don't know." She finally exhales, leaning forward and tracing the lip of her cup. "I really don't know."

"You want to tell me what you do know?" I press. I'll never understand girls. If nothing happened, why is she being so depressed over something she doesn't even know should make her depressed? Did that make any sense?

She shrugs her slim shoulders, falling back into the couch and staring up at the ceiling. "I think I messed up really big this time." She says softly. Maybe she's just trying to be quiet so my mom doesn't hear us. Its not like she's ever had a problem saying whatever she wants to my mom before, though.

"Did you do something illegal?" This gets a smile out of her and that's a step forward.

"Not this time."

I gasp. "Did you hurt Carly?"

"No, dork-wad! I'd never hurt Carly." She starts out on a yell, but ends in a whisper like she's lying and she just realized she's lying.

I sigh and scratch the side of my face. Did I mention that I'll never understand girls? "Did you have a fight?"

Sam shrugs. "Not really. Just, something happened that was weird and I thought maybe it was just one of those things that happens and you don't think much about it and probably you both pretend like it didn't happen, but apparently we weren't on the same page because she's mad at me for pretending."

I frown at her. "_What_?"

She rolls her eyes. "Never mind, I knew that you wouldn't get it."

"Well, you didn't actually tell me anything beyond that something happened and both of you are upset about it." I over-enunciate. "Can you just tell me what happened?"

She bites her lip, staring at me with her big, blue eyes. Finally, she moves closer and sits on the edge of the coffee table to be right next to me. It kind of freaks me out because the only time Sam wants to be next to me is when she's going to hurt me.

"I can't tell you." She says after a long moment of silence. "All I can tell you is something happened and I want to forget about it, but Carly doesn't. And I don't know what to do." Sam's phone goes off yet again, but she just completely ignores it and lets it go this time. "You have to tell me what to do, Freddie."

I stare at her somewhat nonplussed. "How can I tell you what to do when I don't know what happened?"

"Well, I tried flipping a coin and seeing a fortune teller and neither of those things told me what to do." She says and it makes me smile because it seems so irrelevant.

"Why don't you apologize?"

"Apologize?" Sam repeats, frowning.

"Yeah, its what I always do when I make girls angry."

Her lips twitch and she grins at me for probably the first time in my life. "I guess I could apologize. Even though it'll make her think I don't want to forget it anymore."

"Was it that bad that you need to forget it?" It's hard to talk about something when you have no idea what you're talking about.

"I guess not." She stands. "It was just really weird."

"What registers as weird on the Sam scale?"

"I already told you I couldn't tell you." She says, stalking over to the door. She pauses in front of it and flicks her eyes back my way. "This never happened." She states, gesturing back and forth between us.

"Of course not." I nod.

She nods in return and walks out.

---

I hate dreaming, it always makes me feel like such a pervert. Especially after my conversation with Sam a couple days ago, I keep dreaming about what weird thing could have happened between them. Unfortunately, my subconscious is thinking this weird thing involved no clothing and lots of kissing. Just because Sam frightens me, doesn't mean I'm in denial about her hot factor. Adding that to Carly's hot factor and it all leaves me in this very… bothered state. What was I thinking having girls for best friends?

What makes everything even worse is it's a little after two in the morning and I shouldn't be out of my dream state at all yet, only there's a blonde with an evil grin on her face curling her fingers around my ankle and yanking me out of bed.

"Sam!" I exclaim in shock, blushing to the roots of my disheveled hair, grabbing at my blankets to keep a certain responsive part of me covered. "What the hell, Sam? Let me go!"

I hit the floor hard, slamming my side against the wood with a loud _thud._ Sam right-faces and drags me out of my room and on down the hall, not paying any attention to my protests. At least no one besides my mother will see me being owned by a girl. Besides Carly. Geez, why does it have to be Carly that sees Sam do these things? Why does Sam have to be Carly's best friend? Life sucks.

We reach the hall and Sam pulls my door shut behind us. She drops to a squat to stare into my eyes and I can't tell if she's angry or amused and I'm not really sure which one would be better. Her fists grip my pajama shirt and jerk me to my feet.

"Morning, Fredward." Sam greets in a low growl, shoving my back hard into the door. She smirks in a twisted sort of way, eyeballing my pajamas. "Superman?"

"Hey, Superman's cool." I defend with a stutter.

"Not on your body, he's not." Her hands drop and she produces a sucker from her hoodie pocket. "Lollipop?"

I frown at her. "I don't take candy from psychos." She shrugs and plugs the sucker into her own mouth. "You want to tell me why you just dragged me out of bed at two in the morning?"

Her heels come together at a forty-five degree angle, her hand propping off her forehead. "Carly's orders. We've devised a devious plan that requires a car, and she's forbidden me from stealing it."

I sigh heavily, rubbing my eyes and leaning into the door. "Please tell me you did not drag me out of bed at two in the morning to drive you guys somewhere."

"I cannot tell a lie."

"Shit." I shake my head at her. "No, no way. I'm not doing it."

She stares at me for a long moment before shrugging and turning on her heels to head back into the Shay apartment. "Okay, guess someone isn't going to get to see Carly in a bikini." She taunts and I grab her wrist.

"Where are you guys wanting to go?"

She turns back around with a triumphant grin, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Swimming, obviously."

"Swimming where?"

I'm an idiot. That's all I know for sure. Its what had me shoving my tired body into trunks and a t-shirt, slipping my mom's keys into my pocket and sneaking out at two o' clock in the morning to drive the love of my life and her best friend to a pool. This fact was further proven by my lack of emotion at watching Sam pick the lock to the pool at our high school and gladly following her in. I think this really was one of those experiences where I was thinking with the wrong head. Confirmed when Carly slipped her dress off.

I fell in love with the right girl when I was eleven. Smart, sweet, giving, all those other good quality, and geez. Sexy. My eyes drag up and down her body over and over, taking in a view I may never see again. Her slim shoulders, slight curves, small breasts, and those legs that seem to go on forever and ever…

"Stop drooling, nerd, she'll never love you." Sam says, strolling past me and over to Carly. I glare at her back, blushing all over at the thought of removing my shirt in front of her. Actually, in front of either of them. Neither of them is paying attention to me, though, as Sam cannonballs into the pool with Carly jumping in right behind her.

"Come on, Freddie!" Carly calls. "The water's great!"

I blush, wishing I had a better body, wishing I had some impressive scar or tattoo. But I don't. I have just a blah body that doesn't really have any muscle or anything spectacular about it at all. I'm better off in my clothes.

"Nah, I'll keep watch!" I yell back, pointing to the door and sliding a chair really close to it. Not that I'll actually be keeping watch. I can't take my eyes off of them. What is it that is so amazing about girls? Oh yeah. Everything. Carly gives me a disappointed shake of her head and turns away from me.

I check my watch every few minutes, watching as time ticks past three, edging closer to four. My eyelids feel heavy and my brain fuzzy. The pool drifts in and out of my vision. I blink slowly. I will not fall asleep. I won't.

Shit. I fell asleep. It's a quarter to five and the splashing has ended, the sky has shifted to a deep blue. I startle up into a sitting position as I review my previous thought. The splashing has stopped. My eyes are open lightening fast, scanning over the pool and, yes. I see them. Standing near the other end of the pool. Their lips are moving, but I can't hear what they're saying. I go to call out to them when Carly's hand leaves the water and smoothes down Sam's cheek. Wait.

I rub my eyes, digging in hard with my knuckles. Nothing's changing though. Carly's hand is firm to Sam's face and she's smiling. Actually, they're both smiling. Carly leans in closer, but Sam looks away, leaving a frown on Carly's face. What the hell is going on? I stretch closer to the pool, perching on the edge, wishing I was like an elf or something capable of listening in at such a distance, but alas, I do not possess such a gift. Carly steps closer, enveloping Sam into her arms, kissing her shoulder. OMG.

Everything goes blank as I fall face first into the pool, hitting hard, water jet-propelled up my nose. I cough and sputter as I reach the surface, sucking in air like I've been denied it for more than a few seconds. Mere seconds and the moment has already been broken. I can see Carly and Sam making their way across the pool to me. Sam looking surprisingly happy to come to my rescue, Carly looking somewhat disappointed.

"Holy shit, Benson! Did you jump in or did the water drag you in kicking and screaming?" Sam laughs, slapping me on the back more out of violent nature than to help me clear my lungs.

I glare at her. "Just trying to wake up a little. It's almost five. Can we go yet?"

Carly glances at Sam, and when Sam just shrugs, keeping her focus on me, she rolls her eyes and turns back my way. "Sure. Let's go."

---

Sometimes my mom isn't the forceful, freaky, fervid person we all think of her as. Sometimes she just breaks and she sits in our kitchen pretending to read the newspaper while she sobs behind it. Its times like this that I want to beg her to make a fuss over what I'm wearing or go through my stuff to make sure I'm not harboring tools if only to get her to stop crying. Its times like this that I really hate my father.

I hadn't even thought about it when I strolled into the kitchen to get a Peppy Cola, because sometimes she really is just reading the newspaper, but I heard her suck in air as I walked past and hold her breath so I wouldn't notice the moan and tears gush out of her. Forgetting my soda, I yank the newspaper delicately out of her hands and let it fall to the table, wrapping my arms around her. She hugs me back like I'm the only thing she has in this life. Sadly, I kind of am.

Life sucks.

She chokes in another breath and pulls back. Her lips part as if she wants to say something, dabbing at her eyes. "Freddie…"

Then someone knocks on the door.

"I should get that…" She mumbles, rubbing forcefully at her cheeks and trying to stand, but I hold her down.

"No, I'll get it. Just relax."

I curse whoever is at the door for interrupting such a moment until I pull it open and find Carly standing there. She digs her teeth into her glossy bottom lip and glances around uncertainly.

"Carly, hi." My words trip over themselves as they stumble out, hopefully forming some normal English sounds.

Her eyes are wide and pleading, staring into mine. "Do you have a minute? Can we talk?"

There's something about being in love with a person that makes you willing to do anything if only to see them smile, even leaving your crying mom at the dining room table with a bland cup of tea for comfort. There's something about loving this girl that makes me follow her every single time, even though I know it isn't go to score me any points in the possible romance column. Lesson for all: never become friends first. Just don't do it. You're asking to be screwed over.

She leads me back over to her loft and up to her room. We've been friends for several years now, but this is honestly the first time I've ever been in her room. It's exactly how I imagined it would be, though. The walls are pale lavender. Everything is soft and plush, girly. She leads me to the wall opposite the door and slides down it, tugging at my hand so I'll follow her down. At first I think she's going to cry since she keeps glancing at me with wide, hurt eyes and rubbing her lips together. But she doesn't. She numbs over and spaces off out the window, lacing her fingers with mine for comfort.

"Carly?" I whisper, rubbing my thumb over her fingers to get her attention.

She doesn't turn her attention back to me and I go to say her name again, but she speaks then. "I think I finally know how you feel."

I frown at her. "What?"

"All these years you've told me you love me, and I've acknowledged it, but god. You should have told me how much it hurts to be… dismissed." She finally tilts her head back to face me, studying me slowly. "I'm so sorry."

"Who dismissed you?" I ask curiously. I mean, yeah, it does hurt to have my feelings ignored, stepped on, made fun of, and just plain hurt. I just doubt Carly dragged me up to her room to talk about how she's hurt me.

She shrugs, rubbing at her eyes. "It doesn't even matter, I don't know what I was expecting."

I go to repeat the question again, but suddenly a thought strikes. "Was it Sam?"

Her expression solidifies and she swings her head around to eyeball me. "What? Why would you think I'm talking about Sam?"

I shrug. I guess Sam didn't tell her about our talk. "She's just one of the few people with a lot of control on your emotions."

She shrinks back into herself, hugging her knees to her chest. "Something weird happened between us. I mean, at first I thought it was weird, but then… Then I stopped thinking it was weird, you know? Like maybe it was a good thing?"

I nod, letting my head fall back against the wall. Girls, I tell ya. "What happened between you guys?"

"It's… complicated." She says in a small voice. "She doesn't think it was a good thing. At all. And for some reason I really want her to think of it as a good thing, so I just keep forcing everything on her and she pulls further out every time I do. I think maybe I've messed up everything." She buries her head in her hands, her breathing harsh like she might have cried if she had any tears left.

I wrap an arm around her and hug her against me. "What happened?"

She looks up at me, biting her lip. "I can't tell you."

"Oh, come on," I encourage. "We promised to tell each other everything, remember?"

"Yeah, but this is… different."

"That's okay. I like weird that can be interpreted as good."

She smiles softly at that, reaching to hold my hand again. "Its not what you think. I think I'm probably the only one who'd see it as a good thing."

"How do you know what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is, then?"

"I don't know, there's isn't a whole lot that involves Sam that couldn't be classified as weird." I bob a shoulder. "I don't really want to make assumptions, so I'm not really thinking about it passed that."

"Come on, Freddie. I know you; I know you've come up with a possible scenario, probably several. I want to hear them." She grins and digs her elbow into my side as if that is at all encouraging.

"I really don't have anything." I tell her, shoving her elbow away because it kind of hurts. "I can't think of anything that you'd both consider weird, but she wouldn't think of as good and you would."

She nods, pressing back into the wall. "I don't know how to fix things between us." She mutters. "I mean, I still consider it a good thing, but I'd rather have her back than to fight for it."

"Maybe you need to fight for it." I hear my voice say and I have no idea why I'm saying it. "Sam is always forcing other people out of their comfort zone. Maybe its time someone forced her out of hers."

"Its out of my comfort zone to force Sam to do anything." Carly grins, like this is some kind of inside joke that I'm missing.

"This is true. Maybe its time for both of you to be forced out?" I suggest.

She shakes her head, scanning the ceiling with her eyes. "I don't know. But the way things are, this isn't working."

---

I'm in the elevator, and they're fighting. We're supposed to be rehearsing for the next iCarly right now, so I was on my merry way up to the studio, but upon my arrival to the third floor I heard yelling and couldn't brave exiting. So here I sit, in the elevator, listening to the muffled voices of the love of my life and her best friend. It's kind of like listening to the adults in a _Peanuts_ cartoon. _Wahn wahn wahn wahn… Wahn wahn wahn!!!! Wahn! Wahn! Wahn wahn wahn! Wahn wahn wahn wahn wahn!!!! _Girls.

Still, I can't bring myself to just _intrude_ on what's clearly a private conversation, even if it is being screamed. I'm not like Sam; I don't usually eavesdrop or do bad things at all. Even if I want to really badly.

"SAM!"

I jump, startled, hitting the back of my head on the small plastic window on the back of the elevator. Gees. I should just barge in. I didn't even bring a drink with me. I'd always thought the elevator was cool, but now that I've been sitting in it for nearly twenty minutes, I'm realizing it isn't. It's plain, grey, and boring. Boring.

"Fuck-!"

That'd be Sam. Carly would never swear quite like that. If she swears at all. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard Carly cuss. She probably doesn't because she's pure and beautiful and whatnot, unlike Sam.

I kind of want to go out there to stop them from fighting because my life get's worse when they fight. One would think I'd like it because then Carly would want to spend all of her time with me and that would seem like a winning situation, wouldn't it? But it's not. She spends the whole time ranting about Sam and barely noticing my presence at all, even though she requires it. I want to scream at her "look at me! Pay attention to me!" but I don't. It probably wouldn't change anything anyway; her heart has never been mine for the taking.

I jump yet again as the door to the elevator pulls open and there stands Sam with anger etched into her features, her hands balled into fist. She's passed speech, apparently, since all she does is yell, or growl, or something at me and shove me out before hitting the button for the bottom floor. I stare after her in shock for several moments before I hear a shaky exhale behind me.

"Carly…" Tears are draining down Carly's face and I can think of nothing else.

I pull her into my arms, holding her so close she can probably feel my heart pounding in my fingertips. I mutter her name and sweet nothings into her ear over and over, brushing her hair back out of her face, doing anything and everything possible to get her to stop crying, but I know there's nothing I can really do. The one in control just stormed out. So I guess the only thing I can do is go fetch her.

"Wait here." I whisper to Carly, setting her down on a beanbag and racing out the door.

The elevator would take too much time, and time is not on my side in this instance, so I bang through the door to the stairs and start sprinting down them like I can't stop, and probably I couldn't if I tried.

"Sam, Sam!"

I'm already yelling her name in the lobby in the hopes she'll stop running away and Lewbert is yelling at me to stop yelling in his lobby, and I'm not really sure what to do because all I know is Carly needs to stop crying and its up to me to make it happen.

"Sam!"

I'm running down the street like a fool for block after block, trying to catch sight of blonde curls bobbing ahead of me, but I see nothing. Nothing at all. Sam's a fast runner, very fast, I should have known I wouldn't catch up to her. I can't give up, though. I can't give up when Carly is crying and I promised, although not really in words, that I'd fix this, whatever this is.

And I'm on the ground. I was fifty yards or so past Chili In My Bowl when fingers curled around my wrist and then I was on the ground and gasping in shock and pain. I let out a weird, howl-ish screech, and rub at my head.

"Sam?"

She smirks down at me, which is odd since the last time I looked at her face she looked pissed as hell. I guess watching me get hurt brightened her mood.

"You shouldn't run down the street yelling someone's name. I thought maybe the cops were after me." She says, sitting crisscross right there in the middle of the sidewalk.

"You made her cry!" Is all I can get out and it sounds so stupid because I'm stupid. I'm stupid for falling in love with someone who was already in love with someone else and I never really did have a chance. And still. Still, I need to make her happy.

Sam's smile falters and she picks at a hole in her jeans. "Yeah."

I want to slap her, fight back against this evil that's tainted my precious Carly, but I don't hit girls, even girls like Sam, and besides, Carly would hate me if I did. Wait, did I say slap? I meant punch. Because guys punch. Yeah, I said punch.

"I…" Sam starts, but then she just shrugs and leaves it there.

"You what?" I demand of her, sitting up and trying to ignore the pain circling my body.

"I don't know what she wants me to do. I mean I know what she wants, but really? _Really_?" Sam swipes a hand over her face, shaking her head.

"Do it."

"What?"

"Whatever it is, give it to her."

"Freddie-"

"Come on, Sam!" I yell at her, startling the people strolling past us. "You wanted my advice, so here it is! Just do it."

She inhales and exhales really slowly like we're doing yoga exercises before popping back up to standing. Instead of offering me a hand like any nice person would do, she watches and even finds it in herself to chuckle as I climb groggily to my feet, my body aching everywhere.

"Will you just tell me what happened already?" I question as we start making our way back up the street towards Bushwell Plaza.

She shrugs; twisting her lips together and watching people walk past us. "There's nothing to tell."

"Oh, come on. You both came to me worried and upset because something _weird _happened between you and you were disagreeing on what it meant and how to deal with it." I summarize.

She shrugs again. "Define weird. Our relationship has probably always been classified as weird."

"You're really not going to tell me, aren't you?"

She smiles at me; a real smile that lights up her blue eyes and her hair glows in a halo around her face. "You already know."

I moisten my bottom lip, looking down at my shoes as we continue up the street. "Yeah."

---

Life sucks. Because you don't always get the girl. You don't always win. Everything doesn't always go your way. Especially if you're me. Especially if you fall for a girl who's heart already belongs to somebody else. And because you love her, when they realize they have that sort of connection, you can't stop yourself from making sure it seen through. Who knows, maybe someday they'll realize that the connection that was once there is now gone and I really can be Carly's second husband. Hey, a guy can dream.

And just like everything else in their relationship, I'm some sort of observer who watches as things flow, progressing forward without anyone making a big fuss because it just seems natural for them to be together. That's it. Its just natural for Carly and Sam to belong to each other and to watch as their fingers touch and lace together and how they've started kissing each other on the cheek in greeting, its probably too much now to kiss full on the lips in front of Spencer. And as much as it tears at my heartstrings to head up to the iCarly studio and find them locked together, lips pressed so earnestly like it's the first time, eyes squeezed shut, hands gripping, a part of me is happy that she's happy. That's what you do when you love someone. You feel happy when they are. Yeah, I'm still trying to fully convince myself. And, of course, the other half is freaking out at finding two hot girls making out and debating whether or not to record it and put it online. Sam would probably remove my balls if I did.

My mom is watching me over her tuna fish casserole, telling me about this great crochet class she heard about and thinks we should take together. She hasn't cried in a couple of weeks and that's really something since she usually hides behind the newspaper at least once a week.

"Is there something wrong, Freddie?" She asks, smiling affectionately at me.

I shake my head. "Nope. I'm good."

"Do you know what's going on with Carly and that devil of a friend of hers? They seem awfully… touchy lately." My mom says and I shake my head again.

"They've always had a weird relationship."

She nods. "Yes, they have. So, um... your father called." She says and the mood changes immediately as we stare at each other, numb.

"Yeah?"

She nods again. "He wants you to come visit him this weekend."

I lick my lips, searching the room for something to stare at. "Do I have to go?"

"Of course not. But, I mean, he is your father."

I give her my biggest smile. "I don't need a father, I have you."

She beams at me. "Yeah, but-"

"No, I have you."

"Does that mean you'll take the crochet class with me?"

I roll my eyes with a smile. "I would love to learn to crochet with you."

So I'm going to abandon my father the same way he did me, and I didn't get the girl. But at least I'll know how to crochet. That's sexy, right? Way sexy for a guy to know how to crochet. Right.

Life sucks.


End file.
